Every AI provider fails in its own way. I stopped checking status codes and built an error model instead.

The author created an API gateway to integrate multiple AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini, only to find that the real challenge was handling the constant errors from these APIs. Initially, the error handling was simplistic, forwarding any status codes without much thought. However, to improve reliability, the author developed a more sophisticated error model, recognizing that each provider has unique failure modes. This shift underscores the broader issue of AI providers' inconsistent reliability and highlights the need for more robust error handling in AI integrations.